


my happiest days are past (meadow saffron)

by kzumeknma (born_to_fly)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Karasuno Family, M/M, One of My Favorites, Unrequited Love, hanahaki, side pair iwaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/born_to_fly/pseuds/kzumeknma
Summary: in which Sugawara Koushi pines so hard and got so far, but in the end, it didn't even matter.a hanahaki au.





	my happiest days are past (meadow saffron)

**Author's Note:**

> ok this is rated teen for the cursing (yes i used the bad words) and there are allusions to sex but nothing graphic  
> there is no happy ending. please don't read it if you don't like to be sad.
> 
> also, tw: there are vague mentions of suicide and blood, please do not read if that will make you upset
> 
> vaguely inspired by LunnVic's "An Endless Summer Afternoon", a kuroken hanahaki fic that i greatly enjoy it has a lot of pain and is wonderful

It starts with a cough.

Daichi looks at him, worried, but Suga smiles at his boyfriend and waves it off. “It’s just allergies, Daichi, don’t worry your little heart over it.”

Then there are petals, slim and purple, ripping from his throat. Not allergies, then. Suga goes to the school nurse, and her eyes are sad. She gives him a little pamphlet and a business card for a surgeon at a local hospital, then pats his hand and excuses him from school for the rest of the day. _Hanahaki,_ Suga thinks, absently pocketing his petals.

The petals are from meadow saffron, crocuses, beautiful things with blooming purple petals. _The happiest days are past_ , they whisper, but Koushi doesn’t hear.

-

He calls Tooru. Aoba Johsai and Karasuno may be bitter rivals, but Oikawa Tooru and Sugawara Koushi are anything but.

“Why would I have Hanahaki? I’m dating Daichi! I love him, and he loves me!”

“I’m sorry, Kou-chan. I don’t know if I can help you.”

-

Suga skips school but goes to volleyball practice. Daichi isn’t there, and Suga doesn’t stop coughing up petals. The team begins to give him sad looks. Suga thinks, _they know something_ , but then Hinata and Kageyama are fighting again and there’s no time to do anything but pull them apart again.

After school, he walks home with Asahi.

“Is it possible that you could be in love with someone else?” Asahi scratched his neck, loathe to even suggest the idea, terrified of invoking the wrath of Sugawara.

“I don’t think so?” Suga phrased it as a question, frantically thinking of everyone, anyone that he could possibly have fallen for. “Daichi’s been the only one for me since… forever, it seems like.” He looked over at Asahi, who was getting more and more fidgety by the minute.

“Suga, I think-”

Suddenly, Nishinoya appears, ever the god of thunderous voices and lightning speed, and jumps onto Asahi’s back, whooping loudly. Unseen by Suga, Noya’s foot jabs into Asahi’s side, a warning. _Say nothing. Stay quiet._ “Asahi-san! You said you would help me study today!”

“I gotta go, Suga, I- uhh…”

Suga just laughs and waves the glass-hearted ace away.  _How odd,_ he thinks, not without a hint of amusement,  _Noya never wants to study normally._

-

“Really, who else could I love besides Daichi?”

Oikawa looks away, fidgeting with his hands.

“Tooru… Do you know who it is?”

The silence is heavy, damning.

“Kou-chan.”

“Why won’t anyone tell me who it is?”

“We all know, Koushi, we all see it. We just think it’ll be better for you to see it yourself first. After all, your love is your own” Tooru’s smile is bright as he flashed the other setter a peace sign and a cheeky wink, but Koushi is taking no shit today. He can see the lie in Tooru’s eyes, and he doesn’t have much time left.

“Tooru.” Koushi’s flat stare is slightly undermined by the coughing fit that wracks his body. It’s the worst one yet, and he can feel the vines wrapping tighter around his lungs as purple, bloodstained flowers fall to the table in front of him. There’s a sharp, throbbing pain in his chest, and Suga gasps, tears welling in his eyes.

“Koushi!” Tooru’s behind him, hitting his back to dislodge the flowers. After a good minute of hacking, Koushi’s breathing evens out, coughing finally abated.  
“Koushi, you’re coughing up fucking _blood_ , why hasn’t Daichi told you yet-?” Tooru stops abruptly, his mouth snapping shut, and the world seems to freeze.

“What hasn’t Daichi told me?”

“Nothing! I mean, it’s not a big deal, it’s just that we thought it’d be better to let him tell you first-” As Tooru scrambles to fix his mistake, something closes in Koushi, some bright and beautiful spark extinguishes, and suddenly, Tooru knows that Koushi has realized the truth. He’s finally heard the flowers. _My happiest days are past._

“I’m going to Daichi’s,” he says, and his own voice sounds muffled. He feels like he’s watching himself from above, or underwater, or in space, or somewhere where nothing can touch him, or hurt him, or make him feel this terrible, terrible pain that won’t _ever go_ _the fuck away_. Suga stands up, hearing Tooru’s panicked voice rising higher and higher in pitch and volume, turns, and walks out the door.

-

There’s giggling coming from Daichi’s room. Honest-to-god _giggling_. And doesn’t Suga know that voice?

He doesn’t bother knocking. He knows what’s going on inside. He opens the door. Steps inside. There’s nothing else he can do, is there?

“Hello, Daichi. Hello, Michimiya.”

It’s like watching a train wreck. He sees Daichi jump in shock, scrambling, pulling a cover over himself and throwing a pillow at the girl in bed with him. _This can’t be real,_ Suga thinks.

He can hear someone coughing, a bright, bright red. There’s so much blood. Why is it all over him? Vaguely, Suga recognizes that he’s the one coughing, and the purple petals are pouring from his mouth, a mix of flower bits and blood that stains the carpet that bright, bright red. _Wow,_ he thinks, _this is a fucking mess,_ as he chokes on vines and flowers and blood.

There's a curious, dull ache in his chest, and it's getting hard to breathe. He feels like his sternum is about to crack, and he wonders if that's the feeling of a broken heart. Then he remembers that there are vines literally wrapped around his lungs.  _Hmm._

Daichi has yet to move to help him. He’s motionless now, just sitting and watching Suga crash and burn, not even trying to help Michimiya as her voice rises- _Daichi, what’s going on?!-_ and Suga realizes that Michimiya hadn’t known about Daichi’s two-year relationship with another man, she hadn’t known that Suga and him were more than best friends. Suga doesn’t even care anymore. He doesn’t say anything else. There’s nothing to say.

He leaves, and he doesn’t look back.

-

The next day, Suga’s sitting in Daichi’s room, because of course he is.  He can't just let the love of his life cheat on him without explanation. He sits alone on the floor, carefully avoiding the bed, and it’s like he’s in a stranger’s home. It might as well be. Daichi doesn’t love him anymore. In his mind, Suga hears Michimiya’s voice, remembers the pain of seeing the man he loves with someone else. He coughs, and purple whispers out. _Your happiest days are past._

There are footsteps, muffled voices, a pause. More footsteps, heavier this time, a man coming to his grave. Suga knows, and Daichi knows, that this will be the last time they meet this way. The door opens.

The words “ _how long?”_ are poised to tumble from Suga’s lips, but he can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t think of anything except the man he loved, loves, still loves, can’t seem to stop loving, and  _he doesn’t love him back._ A small, sobbing cough pushes its way out instead, along with some blood, and he once he starts he can’t stop, he  _can’t stop coughing_ , and he almost smiles, seeing the shock on Daichi’s face.

A full purple flower sits in the aftermath, its petals falling, mixing with blood and the silent tears streaming down Suga’s face.

_Good._ Suga thinks. _Let him see what he’s done to me._

“Koushi-”

“Don’t call me that.” Suga looks at him, eyes flat, lifeless, so different from the man he used to love.

“Kou-”

“ _Don’t call me that!_ ” Suddenly, he’s screaming, shaking, storming across the room and stopping two feet away, as if Daichi’s very presence is hurting. His eyes are still terrifyingly blank, and he coughs, coughs again, and when he pulls his hand away from his mouth, there’s blood and flowers, blood and the evidence of a love unreturned.

“You have _no right_ to be calling me that.” Suga returns to that eerie, calm blankness and turns away, but Daichi can’t seem to tear his eyes from the shaking form of his former lover.

There’s a beat. Nothing can be heard but the choked-back sobs of a man drowning in love. Then-

“How long?” The dull whisper of a dead man hits Daichi with the blunt force of a battering ram.

“Suga, I-”

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter. In the end, nothing matters.” Suga’s voice is soft, sharp, bitter and broken, and it’s like there are a million little shards of glass going through Daichi’s heart.

“Suga-”

“Stop trying to talk, okay? Stop trying to pretend you care, because _oh no_ , poor little Koushi is dying, poor little Koushi loves his boyfriend, loves some _asshole_ who promised him forever, you promised me _forever, Sawamura,_ and look where we are now!

“I love you, Daichi, I love you beyond the sky, the stars, and the universe, and you know what? Loving you is the _worst_ thing that has ever happened to me. _You_ are the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Look at what you’ve done to me-!” Suga coughs, and coughs, and there is too much blood, and when he’s done, he’s left with hands full of flowers dripping blood onto the floor.

Suga examines the petals casually, playing over them with his fingers, once again numb, detached, and comfortingly blank. He looks into the horrified brown eyes of the man who once loved him and grins, too wide, blood staining his teeth.

“I hope you’re happy.”

-

Suga is gone by the next morning.

There was no surgery. He died alone. He left life shrouded in flowers, in meadow saffron, in the knowledge that his happiest days were past. His sister found his body, the flowers. She screamed and she cried, and her mother and father screamed and cried, but all the screaming could not fill the hole in their hearts, all the crying would not bring Suga back.

In the aftermath, Tooru turns wild, flying at Daichi and scratching him, hitting him, ripping his nails into flesh, and Daichi begs Iwaizumi to get Oikawa off of him but Iwaizumi turns away. His message is clear: Iwaizumi stands with Oikawa. Iwaizumi stands with Suga. Eventually, Oikawa stops, still crying, and Iwaizumi glares at Daichi as they leave.

In the aftermath, Michimiya won’t talk to Daichi. She didn’t know that she hadn’t been the only one. She’s angry, so angry- Suga had been one of her best friends. Her guilt eats her alive, and she cries at night, begging for the forgiveness that she already has, has had since Suga walked in on her. It wasn’t her fault, after all. Nevertheless, one night, she wears a necklace of rope, and she knows she is forgiven.

In the aftermath, the volleyball team mourns deeply for their vice-captain. Hinata and Kageyama stop arguing. Yamaguchi hasn’t smiled in months, and Tsukishima stops snarking. Tanaka and Nishinoya feel the weight of the world on their shoulders, and they can no longer muster the energy to keep the team’s spirit going. Asahi does not show up to practice anymore. They have unanimously voted to remove their captain from the team. Ennoshita steps up, Tanaka at his side. Sometimes, they hear Suga’s voice, cheering them on from the side of the court, and they weep. They play in his memory. They win, and they win, and they do it for him. They are bittersweet victories.

-

In the aftermath, Daichi is not invited to the funeral.

In the aftermath, Suga is gone, and Daichi is alone.

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi hi y'all
> 
> i'm really sorry. suga is my son and i love him to tears. literal tears. i cried writing this.  
> also i love daichi to pieces too pls do not hate him ok even tho he was an asshole here he is a Good Guy in canon  
> any comments, criticism, questions, etc pls don't hesitate to share! (i know i'm not a good writer so there must be something lol)
> 
> thinking of continuing with a series of more hanahaki w iwaoi, tsukkiyama, and kuroken bc there is not enough heavy angst hanahaki  
> if y'all wanna come scream w me about hq or anything else rly i'm on tumblr at kzumeknma
> 
> thanks so much for reading!


End file.
